amazon prime. what a scam
 

so the other day I ordered a motive brake bleeder from "amazon". $49 PLUS 5 for shipping., something happened and I had to re order so I let my wife order it on her "amazon prime". $56 with FREE shipping. gee, I wonder if shipping really was free:rolleyes:

I hear people say they just goto amazon because its cheaper. I find things quite a bit cheaper than amazon at other places quite a often.

I order a car part from, lets say Bavauto.

It costs a few busks less and the shipping almost makes it a wash +/- $5.

Then the order sits for 4-8 days before it finally ships. I get it 2 weeks later.


I order the same part on Amazon and it is on my door step 2 days later.


Additionally, if I need something, I can have it to me in 2 days with a few mouse clicks.

I also have a ton of movies and series I can stream and music I can stream if I desire all included in the membership.

It is not for everyone, I get that, I like the convenience of it.

Also, if you wife has prime, you have prime, you can put your CC# in there and order under her account.

My Prime account services 3 people, myself, my wife and my adult son, who does not live with us we all use it.

Nothing is free.

Amazon knows full well that if you are a prime member, you are "locked in" and likely to look for everything there first.

^^^^^ Prime is no longer about pricing, it is about convenience. Several things I have ordered lately have "free" one day shipping. I can maybe get something a little cheaper elsewhere but unless the price difference is significant, Prime it is although E-bay and Walmart on-line are worth checking into on some items.. and nothing is really "free"...

and We have several grandkids using our Prime account.

That being said, Amazon appears to be on a path for world domination and this may not end well for a lot of businesses. I try to buy locally but it can be really time-consuming to do so for many items.

The price of the same item may depend on the seller. Motive Products brake bleeders are sold on Amazon by at least two different vendors (Motive Products and Motive Gear). Vendor A may not participate in Prime, while vendor B does. To compete, Vendor A has to offer a lower price plus shipping. Without Prime offering free shipping, Vendor A might charge the higher price PLUS shipping. BTW, both the vendors I found sell at the same price.
Also, Amazon doesn't offer everyone the same price. They may have thought you were a better demographic to offer a cheaper price to.

That's odd......I just looked it up on Amazon and didn't see it listed as discounted price - just the $56.46 figure. With PRIME I could get it delivered tomorrow with free shipping. Without PRIME it would still qualify for free shipping but I couldn't get it so fast.

Anyway......I love getting things so quickly without paying for shipping (or extra shipping) and that alone is worth the membership, for me.

Last week I ordered some medication for one of my dogs I couldn't get elsewhere and receiving it so quickly was a relief.

You also live in the land of dirt cheap shipping. I buy most things off Amazon now. Shipping, like everything else in Canada costs more. Amazon usually under-charges or doesn't charge ANY tax on some items, that would be taxed at a local store. Shhh.... don't tell the Canadian government.

They also have the free included movies, and music streaming service. Once again, Canadians get hosed on this compared to the US Amazon Prime. :P

You need to understand the difference between private merchants, private merchants using amazon fulfilment centers, amazon prime eligible merchants, and amazon sourced items themselves.

Also prime isn't just free shipping, but guaranteed two day. Depending on where you live this may still be worth it.

I do not like having recurring subscription services in my life.

I had an Amazon adventure that took two weeks, it was from a private merchant that I believe has a business model of screwing over just under the 0.5% that amazon allows mistakes on higher dollar lower volume items he sells. It objected to what was happening on principal of what was right, and navigated the river all the way to corporate to get things made right.

I still order/buy from Amazon, but less than I used to.

I use Prime be cause I know it will be at my door faster. I don't really care about the nominal difference in pricing.

Pricing on Amazon is often dynamic.

I've seen the price on an item i'm watching fluctuate several times within hours.

Shipping is similar.

Needed to order a bunch of the same item for the office.

Free next day shipping so dropped 6 in the cart and next shipping day turned into 3 day.

Changed the quantity to 2 and next day was available again.

So I placed 3 separate orders of 2. :D

Some things are cheaper, some are not.
As any informed buyer I do compare before spending.
Ordered bunch of ammo cans from Wal-Mart online. they're losing money on those after shipping.

I'm not in or near a big city and as such, I can rarely get any item delivered in less than a week. I've found that Walmart.com to often have better prices on electronics than Amazon. They also have about the same selection as Amazon--much better than their stores. I can usually find the exact same items at both Walmart.com and Amazon. The real kicker for me, however, is that most of the items on Walmart.com I can have shipped to a local store for free in a day or two. So I get fast delivery and a good price. I feel like Walmart is really leveraging its infrastructure to make this happen.

You have to be very careful with Amazon pricing. A lot of the time, the price is not lower than the local store.

we buy a lot from amazon and have the prime membership. not a scam from my perspective. the speed we receive items is phenomenal, and the streaming video also gets used often. we have no cable tv, so all our tv entertainment comes via amazon prime or our netflix subscription. being in a major metro area, some items ordered on prime will arrive the same day. driving 6 miles round trip to the store can be a hour+ endeavor with the traffic around here so amazon is a time saver. returns are super easy too. we have an amazon locker just down the street from our house where I can dump packages to be returned.

However I live in a place where the local stores are limited in inventory. "Happy to order that for you!", yeah thank you no.

That's like all modern auto part stores.

I buy from amazon at least once a week.

Equipment filters for Bobcat & Kubota 1/2 the price of local dealer.

$20 check valve at home depot, at my door for $12.

Just need to be smart about it.

Then there is variety and convenience. I wanted a small wifi camera to send an image to my phone, for aligning trailer hitch. $20 on amazon, right to my door. I could spend hours driving to auto parts, best buy, etc and not find it.

I use Amazon Prime all the time. The item usually arrives 2 days later (sometimes sooner, rarely later) at my office (I prefer that to my porch). I know they jack up prices when they can, and I've heard (here I think) that they sense you're shopping if you don't buy or with click tracking or cookies or something that like that and reduce their prices.

I don't bother with that. As mentioned, the convenience is well worth it, especially not having to drive somewhere and waste time and gas. An Amazon is excellent about returns. I don't have to worry about them, especially if they themselves "fulfill" the order.

One of the things I like about Amazon Prime..The return policy is pretty liberal... and I always see the credit hit my checking account right after the UPS driver picks it up from my shop.

If you need it faster than Amazon can deliver it, a lot of big box retail locations places use Amazon as a reference for price matching. I've gotten some pretty good deals at Best Buy and Fry's doing this.

The free shipping scam isn't limited to Amazon, but it's not as bad as the "Next Day" shipping from certain parts sites, where they indeed ship it "next day" - a week later when they actually get the part.

Last spring when I was building my deck, I needed to buy joist wrap. Neither Home Depot or Lowes carried in the store; I would have to order it online and according to the website, it would be here sometime in the next two weeks. I went on amazon, no only did I find it, it was cheaper, I got same-day delivery, on a Sunday - on Easter Sunday no less.

Yeah but the frustration these days is the big boxes have adopted the Amazon model.

Go on any of their websites and search for a product.

Seems like 80% of their "inventory" is not in stock at the retail locations but "can be available for pickup in X days"

Eve Frys is going down the ****ter these days.

The customer service in my local Frys has gone from barely average to nonexistent.

Well, I can't imagine the store employees are real thrilled about price matching requests that eat into any commission they might earn.

I buy so much schit from amazon that it’s worth it. You just have to price shop and make sure you’re not ordering something that’s priced way out of whack. “Sold by and ships from amazon” is pretty important too, for easy returns.

I use PRIME for a lot, if not most of my purchases. Convenience. I don't have to drive to the store to buy the sneakers I already know will fit. You do have to watch the quality. Some stores like Macy's carry the same brands, but the merchandise is higher quality. A lot of the Amazon stuff is the "outlet" quality.

I use Prime for shopping at Whole Foods and watching Dr. Who and documentaries. The shipping thing is nice.

What I find is that if you're patient you can find better deals not using Prime. The two day shipping is what really drives Prime. If you don't need it in two days and can wait an extra day or two you'll typically save money.

Uh yeah. Amazon Prime, by definition, is not for the folks with lots of patience.

I watch a lot of Amazon prime movies, and old TV shows. For a Star Trek fan, they have all the different series, and even the original is remastered in high definition. I could watch every episode of all the series in order. Then there is Grand Tour, movies, and lots more.

We order a lot from Amazon. I needed a single ream of paper and I prefer the high quality, smooth surface Hammermill paper. Yea, I can get in my car, drive several miles to a Staples or Office Depot, and pay the same basic price or have it delivered to my door.

I have had some weird things in a single order. A new 6 TB hard drive, parts to rebuild my outdoor faucet, Oil filters for my El Camino, and filter for the water well.

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<------ Prime addict.

I will not even bother to start the car if I can buy from Prime.

My time has value.

What's your favorite ones from the original series?

Which is why it strikes me as funny that they have that checkbox for if you don't need it in two days you can use a slower shipping method.. If I didn't want or need it in two days, I wouldn't have used Prime.

Hey, if Amazon Prime isn't for you, more power to you. A lot of reasons to use it are identified here and tons of people like it.

If you check the box, they give you credits to use elsewhere on their site.

Actually I really liked Enterprise. The prequel to the original series. It explains some of the formation of the "The Federation" and other things. It was actually shot many years later, and the special effects are orders of magnitude better.

As for a favorite series, hard to say. All of em! :D

Obviously I use it or I wouldn't know about that crazy checkbox for slower shipping. As the OP pointed out, there is savings in buying from a vendor and not using prime and in a lot of cases I have found that I can buy it cheaper and have it here in two days if I pay attention to where the seller is shipping from.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing Prime, I use the hell out of it and rarely do I visit my previous favorite online shopping store... ebay because I can get it new with a better return policy through Amazon.

I just bought an orbital polisher kit from Chemical Guys. Their shipping time was going to be 5-7 days.

I looked on Amazon and for the same price, I could get the same kit in 2 days. When I went to purchase it, Amazon offered a 10% discount if I ordered it and subscribed to their monthly subscription program that you can cancel at anytime. So will be cancelling that shortly.

Got a set of wipers delivered to my door in 5 days from a BMW dealer for $14. I could have gotten them quicker, but Amazon then offered me a $5 discount at WF to forgo 2 day shipping. SOLD

Not sure how these third party sellers make money in these situations, kind of scary in a way for bricks and mortar retailers.

The ones where Kirk bangs the blue-haired alien chick and all the red shirts die.